Heading North
17 April 2017 | Paxos, Greece - 5,748 NM
Overcast
As you can see from the title we have managed to escape from Velco bay, sorry I mean Nydri. But like the rest of our time there our last couple of days were lovely.
We walked inland for about 5km following a dry river bed to the Nydri Waterfalls. It was a lovely walk but given the lack of water we were prepared to be underwhelmed by the falls. We needn't have worried, after about 3km there was some water and a bit further on series of very pretty but small falls. This didn't look like the picture on the postcards so we carried on. All of a sudden ahead was the Nydri Falls Cafe and beyond it a path that wound itself uphill. We followed it for a few minutes and soon we had arrived. The falls were perhaps 30ft to 50ft above us cascading into a beautiful turquoise pool. Lovely. We returned via the cafe and prepared ourselves for the night's entertainment.
Josie, Lorraine's second cousin, was having an 18th birthday party on Dhesmio beach a few miles away. It was a beautiful spot and Arran did a great job in organising this night, some excellent food, a guitar and some singing. A great time was had by all. We were planning to leave the following day, aiming to leave around 11:00 and we had offered Josie a lift to Lefkas on the boat where she was going to spend a few days with a friend. Truthfully we would have been disappointed that if after her 18th birthday party (they continued partying after the BBQ) she made our departure time. So after finally making phone contact with her to say goodbye we set off on our own to Lefkas all of 8NM away.
We were only planning to stay one night, just long enough to collect our life raft and fit our new guard rails. As we finished tying on our mooring lines along came a familiar face to say hello. It was Robin from Miss Chips, a boat we met in Almerima in 2013 and did a bit of sailing with in early 2014, after which we headed in separate directions. We had a great evening with him and Becks, so much so that we didn't get around to fitting the guard rails.
The next morning and a bit later than we planned and truth be told, feeling a little groggy we set to work, the first two guard rails went on fine, but the next two didn't fit. They were to long, one by three inches the other by five. There was a problem with the measuring, but also the boat is longer by two inches on the starboard side! We rushed them round to the riggers to have them shortened very conscious that it was now midday on the Thursday before Good Friday and they were about to shut for 4 days. Luckily they managed to squeeze us in that afternoon and by 4:00 pm they were installed on the boat, but by then we had lost the enthusiasm for moving and decided to stay another night in Lefkas. It did give us an opportunity to explore Lefkas and we discovered some lovely bits that we missed on our previous visits and on our pub crawl the night before.
The next morning we headed off to Preveza aiming for the 10:00 am bridge opening. The bridge is actually a barge with a drawbridge at either end that swings open to let boats through. The first time we went through it fully opened. This time we were the only boat passing through so he just opened the drawbridge while shouting at us to hurry, it looked like a very small hole to squeeze Freya through and we were worried about hitting the drawbridge with the mast as it was still going up, but in truth there was plenty of room.
We needed water and electricity to fully charge the batteries, so on hearing that the utility points on the town quay were out of service, we opted for the very reasonable marina in Preveza for two nights.
Preveza is lovely harbour town with a long sea front promenade and a pedestrian street behind and parallel to it. It was Good Friday and the Greek churches paraded flower covered altars through the streets, accompanied by brass bands and followed by the congregation carrying lighted candles to a square on the seafront. By the end of the evening they were perhaps half a dozen of the altars in the square. Not as full on a spectacle as the Spanish Semana Santa parades but very interesting to see. On the Saturday morning, which the Greeks call "Mekalo Sabado" or Big Saturday we went into town to see an even stranger tradition. The streets and balconies were full of people, many carrying terracotta pots, some plain, some with names on, others richly decorated. The people were waiting for a signal. It was due at 9:30 but in Greek style it came just before 10:00. The church bells rang and people started dropping the pots from the balconies and smashing them on the ground to shouts of "happy easter" and " have a long life". Surprisingly no one was brained by a falling pot or cut by flying fragments of terracotta and all seemed to enjoy it. This as followed by Greek music and dancing n the street.
Next we head north towards Albania.........
The link to our map seems to be stopping people leaving comments on the blog, so I've removed it for now. I will be keeping it up to date so simply go to an earlier blog and click the link there to see it.